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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

an aeron chair costs about $2000 dollars (give or take). The construction is sturdy, so i expect it to last at least 10 years, if not 20 (you take care of it etc).

So the amortized cost is some 100-200 dollars a year for an excellent chair. If you buy a crappy chair, i bet that the cushion starts failing after a year or so of constant sitting. So you'd probably replace it yearly, or suffer a bad chair for a few years before replacing.

I bet that most people would choose an excellent chair, if they could guarantee themselves the 10 yrs of good operation and comfort.

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This is the Sam Vimes economic theory.

But there’s a corollary - if you do not need the thing to last, you may be better off with the cheapest one you can find (which may be used - and which may be better than new).

This is the “but it from harbor freight, if it breaks now you know you use it enough to make it worth getting a good one”.

> if you do not need the thing to last, you may be better off with the cheapest one

Well, it's not even sure if you take resell value into account. If you need your good chair for one year, just buy it $2000 and sell it used for $1900.

Which is a very good way to cut down the money spend on things.

> This is the Sam Vimes economic theory.

I consciously adopted the "poor young constable Vimes" strategy for footwear last year. I like, and would probably prefer, quality shoes -- but it's such a crapshoot what those are nowadays that I just can't be bothered to buy a pig in a poke yet again. I mean, brands that used to be OK when I was younger... Mostly aren't any more.

So last year when Lidl had trainers for sale at 30 € (or was it 20? 25? 15?) I bought five pairs. Still on the first ones, so definitely financially ahead -- "better" brands haven't lasted any longer than that in my recent experience.

As a random anecdote, I own a steelcase gesture that runs about $1,100. I also own a 70$ chair from costco and I can "barely" feel the difference. I have all my settings configured correctly. I really don't buy into the the expensive officechair hype. I think it's a level of diminishing returns. I think a $200 office chairs is about what anyone needs. That'll get you 90%+ of the way.

Where would you say you sit on the physical-dimensions bell curve?

I'd hope that the more expensive chair has better adjustability to suit a wider range of critical dimensions than the cheaper chair. But that may not matter for a lot of people.

My favorite part about my steelcase is the adjustable lumbar but really all I need is the seat to go up and down.

I have a more expensive herman miller embody. It... doesn't really have much to adjust. Just the shape of the back. That's kind of an irritating aspect of it to me.

> an aeron chair costs about $2000 dollars (give or take).

Some people buy that $2000 chair when it's $350 and can still use it for years. The key is to learn what products remain quality products.

(And it's not about it being expensive. It's because it keeps your butt cool all year.)

My $60 office chair from Walmart has lasted five years so far.

Same for my $70 IKEA chair (which also survived 4 moves). I only stopped using it because my job let us take home the office chairs once work from home started a few years ago.

If you expect a $2000 chair to last a mere 10 years, unless the user is 300 lbs or something IMHO your standards are pretty low.

Don't forget, not everyone can afford $200 for a chair, the initial outlay costs I mean.

I'm looking at an Aeron and while I have a decent salary, it's still a massive commitment for me to pay that much for something I put my ass on.

Well, personally, I have a lot of durable chairs, but I love my Aeron because the adjustability got me out of RSI. I don't mind replacing the chair every year if it would help me avoid RSI. I haven't had to, but I wouldn't mind. Durability in chairs seems to be easy.

I've been out of action due to RSI a couple of times in the past 7 or 8 years. I haven't worked out what the cost was but, sure, it was multiple times the price of a premium chair.

At $100-200 per year? No, the cushion won't be failing after a year. That would be a $30 chair.

An Aeron is nice but plenty of other chairs last way longer than a year and are maybe a fifth of the price of an Aeron. You also have to consider for a lot of people there are other products that will give them a much better pay off.

My Aeron is 10 years old. It literally is as good as the day it was delivered and I use it every day.

Yes, I wish I could replace the seat cushion in my chair. That’s literally the only thing wrong with it.

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